Here we are, having finished yet another Ramadan. Having been blessed with yet another Ramadan. It is as if it was yesterday when we were wondering how we are going to go through all of these 30 days. The summer months fasting, this is the difficult fasting of July and August, and we were wondering how it was going to finish. The month is as if it only came by literally one hour ago.

Dear, brothers and sisters, there is also a more rational and spiritual side that is dreading the end of this month. Why? Because we will miss Ramadan and everything about Ramadan! We are going to miss fasting for the sake of Allah and feeling thirsty in the daytime knowing that Allah is rewarding us. We are going to miss giving up our sleep. We are going to miss the halaawah of listening to the Qur’an. We are going to miss the pleasure of every day – forget the iftar, far sweeter than that is the brotherhood of Islam and the full masjid.

Ramadan makes us feel the pleasure of being a Muslim. Ramadan allows us to taste what the Prophet called halaawat’l-iman. He said iman has a taste and that the person has tasted iman. There is an after effect of iman. How does it taste? The Prophet said there is a sweetness of iman.

Every one of us sitting here today has tasted that sweetness and has become addicted to the tilawah, the brotherhood, the masajid, the Qur’an, the dhikr, the du’a, the ibadah. We are reintroduced to what it truly means to worship Allah. In that process, we rediscover over and over again a fundamental fact: there is nothing sweeter than worshiping Allah. There is no feeling on earth that can leave you as fulfilled and as happy and as productive as worshiping Allah.

Your bodies are tired, your throats are dry, your sleep has been deprived, but I could not pay you a million dollars to feel like you feel right now, knowing that you fasted every day of this month and knowing that you struggled and have attended tarawih. You feel like you have done something because you have done something that is truly the only productive thing that you can do, which is the worship of Allah. Everything that you do for the dunya comes and goes. Everything that I do and you do for this dunya is all going to go, no matter what you do or how big of a house you built. Deep down inside you know that this is not what it is really all about. What you do for the sake of Allah and for the sake of the akhirah truly remains. That is dar’l-akhirah. Allah said, “Dar’l-akhirah is the real life.” Whatever we do for that hereafter is what makes us feel as if there is no other feeling in the world.

This is why, brothers and sisters, one of the biggest benefits of Ramadan and perhaps the biggest wisdom is that Allah facilitates for us and gifts us some sweets – the sweetness of Islam, the sweetness of iman, the sweetness of living like a Muslim.

In Ramadan we intentionally weaken the body and make it secondary because when we push the bodies’ urges and needs aside, the spirit rises up. When we neglect the body, the soul takes over. What does that allow us to do? The opportunity to concentrate on the soul! The soul feels more aware. Sadly, the iman of every one of us won’t be the same two weeks from now. We all know this. The iman that we feel right here and now is not going to be the same one month from now.

The sad fact of the matter is that we are not as good Muslims as we should be. In Ramadan, every one of us raises the bar. This is one of the blessings of Allah. Anyone who has an atom’s weight of iman, in Ramadan they raise the bar. If they are not praying, they began to pray. If they are not praying sunnah, they pray sunnah. If they pray sunnah, they start praying tahajjud. If they read one page of Qur’an a day, they start reading ten pages a day. This is the Sunnah of Allah.

Brothers and sisters, every one of us has raised the bar this month. When we raised the bar, what have we discovered? Raising the bar is not that difficult. In fact, the rewards and pleasure are worth it. Now that Ramadan is over, what are we going to do after this? Are we going to back to where it all began? Are we going to go back to our previous lifestyles? If that is the case, then the fact of the matter is that Ramadan has not truly benefited us. Allah gave us the dessert, but apparently we didn’t taste the sweetness because we aren’t interested in tasting it again and again and again.

One of the signs of Allah having accepted a good deed, as our scholars of the past say, is that you are better after the deed than before it. If you go for Hajj, you better come back changed, or else your Hajj is useless. That is the reality of what Islam and the Qur’an and Sunnah teaches us. When you have had a momentous blessing of Allah it should show in your daily life. That is why the scholars say that those who go for Hajj and come back the same, it is as if Hajj did not have any impact on them. The same goes for any blessing.

Ramadan is one such blessing. We have been blessed with another Ramadan. Allah knows how many more Ramadan’s we are going to have. Brothers and sisters, every one of us knows people who were not with us last Ramadan. A time will come when people will be remembering us as well. “So-and-so used to be amongst us,” and we are not going to be there. Allah knows when our last Ramadan is.

Brothers and sisters, the real halaawah is the halaawah of iman. Al-Hasan al-Basri, the famous ascetic, said, “You seek pleasure? You seek happiness? You will only find it in one of three things, and if you don’t find it in three things, then know that the door of happiness has been shut for you, and you are not going to find it anywhere else. 1 – salah, 2 – qira’at’l-Qur’an, 3 – dhikrullah.” This is where you find happiness: salah, Qur’an, dhikr. If you are not going to find happiness in these three things, you are not going to find it anywhere else.

Brothers and sisters, the month of Ramadan is over, but the Lord is the same. The time is finished, but our lives still have some time. Ramadan is over, but Allah has blessed us with more life and we pray for many more years, but eventually that must come to an end. Every one of us will come to an end, so let us pray that this Ramadan will be the first of many Ramadan’s where we raise the bar every single month.

Brothers and sisters, prayer, salah, dhikr, Qur’an, recitation, being with the Muslims and the brotherhood, realizing we are an ummah – you and I both know that when we go to work and are the only Muslim there, you feel lonely and cut off. With the community, you feel alive. Every single day, 50-100 Muslims gathering to worship Allah is all gone now. It’s not going to remain, but why should your attachment to the masjid be cut off? The masjid is so packed that people are standing and parking lots have a problem and Eid comes and the day after Eid, we have two rows for prayer. Why? You are all living in the same city. You are all close to the masjid. Why should it be that the tilawah is heard every day and as soon as Ramadan is over, the Qur’an begins to gather dust until the next Ramadan? What type of attitude is this when Allah has gifted us a Ramadan and allowed us to taste iman? Let us continue that taste every day, every week, every month. When you make the intention and take the step, Allah will make it easy. The Prophet said, “Allah says, ‘whoever walks toward Me one step, I walk towards him ten. Whoever comes to Me walking, I come to him running.” This is the beauty of Allah. This is the majesty of Allah. You show the intention and try whatever you can and Allah will bless us with the rest.

May Allah make this Ramadan an accepted Ramadan from all of us? May Allah accept all of our fasting? May Allah accept all of our qiyam. May Allah accept all of our recitation of the Qur’an? May Allah free every one of us from His punishment and anger and the fire of Hell? May Allah place us amongst the victorious?